Post by cottonpicker on Sept 12, 2011 8:26:48 GMT -5
C O R N B R E A D
Larry D. Davis
I believe we, as individuals, are the sum total of all our ancestors who have gone before us and their experiences and food traditions have been entrusted into our care after the parents and grandparents are no longer with us in body, but only in spirit. Specifically, I believe my life has been inexorably influenced by all those who have gone before me whether they were from Wales, Virginia, Kentucky, the Carolinas, Mississippi, Arkansas or Texas and that all that somehow culminated in me, whether it be my mannerisms, manner of speech or…my food preferences.
To me, nuthin’ in this world reminds me of the comforts of “home” more than the smell of freshly baked cornbread, southern style, and when I get a yearning to “taste my childhood”, I make cornbread by Mom’s recipe. Matter of fact, I did just that very thing today! Making her recipe follows two cardinal rules for truly Southern cornbread --- there’s no sugar in the recipe and it must be baked in a pre-heated cast iron skillet so the top is lightly browned, the insides are soft as a baby’s bottom and there’s a nice crust on the bottom. That bottom crust is the secret since it lends texture like none other and is attainable only by putting oil or, in the old days, bacon grease into the skillet and pre-heating it in the hot oven before adding the prepared batter. It really sizzles when the batter hits that hot oil and a wonderful crust forms almost immediately. The cast iron skillet I use was passed down to me from my grandmother’s sister-in-law, my great Aunt Lola. It is definitely over 100 years old but still cooks like a king! “Authentic” Southern cornbread bears little resemblance to the sweet corn bread or muffins enjoyed by many, especially in the “North”, since ours is intended to be savory rather than sweet.
Cornbread is one of the most versatile forms of bread imaginable. It can be served with a big pot of pinto or kidney beans that have been slowly cooked with a ham bone, hog jowl, sow belly or a piece of pork fat back to give it that unmistakable aroma and flavor that I remember from childhood on a cold wintry day. Or, it is equally delicious with a steaming bowl of beef stew made with cubed beef, chopped carrots, diced onion and diced tomatoes like my mother used to make for me when I came home for a visit during Christmas vacation. My Dad and his mother used an old-time term to describe great food--- it’s “larapin”! What?..You never heard of the term?? Well, look it up in a dictionary or on the internet! It’s a term from the “old South” meaning “scrumptious”! Cornbread is equally tasty with a bowl of domesticated (garden grown) or “wild greens”such as Poke or Lambsquarter in the springtime and it is generally used as a vehicle to soak up some of that wonderfully tasty “pot likker”, also referred to as broth. Together they give a flavor that is much bigger and better than the sum total of their separate parts---somehow they are miraculously “synergistic” to use a modern term. Every springtime I hunt (forage) for poke greens & lambsquarter right here in Pennsylvania just as we did when I was a kid in Oklahoma 70 years ago and as my ancestors have done for generations. At the other end of the taste spectrum, my grandpa Davis always liked his warm cornbread after a meal as dessert with Blackstrap molasses or pancake syrup poured over it and that’s still one of my all-time favorites. I enjoyed some today-- warm cornbread with “Brer Rabbit” Unsulphured Molasses. Lordy!! what a treat from the past!! That brought back such memories & it was, indeed, larapin. In fact…untold numbers of ”country folks”, including my dear mother and older members of the family, used to eat a simple supper comprised of nothing more than their beloved cornbread crumbled into a glass of “sweet milk” or buttermilk and accompanied by a few “green onions” (known as scallions to northern folks) from the garden. For the uninitiated, “sweet milk” is the term country folks used to refer to whole milk as opposed to “skim milk” or “buttermilk”-- the left-overs from making butter. When I was a kid some folks called separated or skim milk “Blue John”. On the farm, our separated milk was produced in a DeLaval Centrifugal Separator that sat in the back room of grandad’s farm house on the Porter place in Western Oklahoma and it was operated by a crank handle which turned the big centrifuge bowl on top. Cow’s milk was poured into the bowl, the handle was quickly turned to spin the big “bowl”and it separated the cream from the skim milk. The cream was poured over the morning’s oatmeal or churned by hand into butter and then used on top of our “cathead” sized biscuits or cornbread. I still remember operating the separator and also turning grandma’s Daisey Churn handle to make a “blob” of butter which she then put into a wooden mold that compressed it and left the imprint of a pretty flower on top. Our butter wouldn’t spoil at room temperature like today’s modern “corporate butter” which MUST be refrigerated. Ours WAS organic & natural and wouldn’t spoil at room temperature! As a matter of fact it was always left out at room temperature on the dining table which made it instantly spreadable.
Cornbread will always be a part of my food tradition as long as there is warmth in my body and breath in my nostrils.
©2009 Larry D. Davis
Larry D. Davis
I believe we, as individuals, are the sum total of all our ancestors who have gone before us and their experiences and food traditions have been entrusted into our care after the parents and grandparents are no longer with us in body, but only in spirit. Specifically, I believe my life has been inexorably influenced by all those who have gone before me whether they were from Wales, Virginia, Kentucky, the Carolinas, Mississippi, Arkansas or Texas and that all that somehow culminated in me, whether it be my mannerisms, manner of speech or…my food preferences.
To me, nuthin’ in this world reminds me of the comforts of “home” more than the smell of freshly baked cornbread, southern style, and when I get a yearning to “taste my childhood”, I make cornbread by Mom’s recipe. Matter of fact, I did just that very thing today! Making her recipe follows two cardinal rules for truly Southern cornbread --- there’s no sugar in the recipe and it must be baked in a pre-heated cast iron skillet so the top is lightly browned, the insides are soft as a baby’s bottom and there’s a nice crust on the bottom. That bottom crust is the secret since it lends texture like none other and is attainable only by putting oil or, in the old days, bacon grease into the skillet and pre-heating it in the hot oven before adding the prepared batter. It really sizzles when the batter hits that hot oil and a wonderful crust forms almost immediately. The cast iron skillet I use was passed down to me from my grandmother’s sister-in-law, my great Aunt Lola. It is definitely over 100 years old but still cooks like a king! “Authentic” Southern cornbread bears little resemblance to the sweet corn bread or muffins enjoyed by many, especially in the “North”, since ours is intended to be savory rather than sweet.
Cornbread is one of the most versatile forms of bread imaginable. It can be served with a big pot of pinto or kidney beans that have been slowly cooked with a ham bone, hog jowl, sow belly or a piece of pork fat back to give it that unmistakable aroma and flavor that I remember from childhood on a cold wintry day. Or, it is equally delicious with a steaming bowl of beef stew made with cubed beef, chopped carrots, diced onion and diced tomatoes like my mother used to make for me when I came home for a visit during Christmas vacation. My Dad and his mother used an old-time term to describe great food--- it’s “larapin”! What?..You never heard of the term?? Well, look it up in a dictionary or on the internet! It’s a term from the “old South” meaning “scrumptious”! Cornbread is equally tasty with a bowl of domesticated (garden grown) or “wild greens”such as Poke or Lambsquarter in the springtime and it is generally used as a vehicle to soak up some of that wonderfully tasty “pot likker”, also referred to as broth. Together they give a flavor that is much bigger and better than the sum total of their separate parts---somehow they are miraculously “synergistic” to use a modern term. Every springtime I hunt (forage) for poke greens & lambsquarter right here in Pennsylvania just as we did when I was a kid in Oklahoma 70 years ago and as my ancestors have done for generations. At the other end of the taste spectrum, my grandpa Davis always liked his warm cornbread after a meal as dessert with Blackstrap molasses or pancake syrup poured over it and that’s still one of my all-time favorites. I enjoyed some today-- warm cornbread with “Brer Rabbit” Unsulphured Molasses. Lordy!! what a treat from the past!! That brought back such memories & it was, indeed, larapin. In fact…untold numbers of ”country folks”, including my dear mother and older members of the family, used to eat a simple supper comprised of nothing more than their beloved cornbread crumbled into a glass of “sweet milk” or buttermilk and accompanied by a few “green onions” (known as scallions to northern folks) from the garden. For the uninitiated, “sweet milk” is the term country folks used to refer to whole milk as opposed to “skim milk” or “buttermilk”-- the left-overs from making butter. When I was a kid some folks called separated or skim milk “Blue John”. On the farm, our separated milk was produced in a DeLaval Centrifugal Separator that sat in the back room of grandad’s farm house on the Porter place in Western Oklahoma and it was operated by a crank handle which turned the big centrifuge bowl on top. Cow’s milk was poured into the bowl, the handle was quickly turned to spin the big “bowl”and it separated the cream from the skim milk. The cream was poured over the morning’s oatmeal or churned by hand into butter and then used on top of our “cathead” sized biscuits or cornbread. I still remember operating the separator and also turning grandma’s Daisey Churn handle to make a “blob” of butter which she then put into a wooden mold that compressed it and left the imprint of a pretty flower on top. Our butter wouldn’t spoil at room temperature like today’s modern “corporate butter” which MUST be refrigerated. Ours WAS organic & natural and wouldn’t spoil at room temperature! As a matter of fact it was always left out at room temperature on the dining table which made it instantly spreadable.
Cornbread will always be a part of my food tradition as long as there is warmth in my body and breath in my nostrils.
©2009 Larry D. Davis